405 project stuck in the slow lane
The massive project to widen the 405 Freeway is not only causing traffic nightmares for motorists like Musk but has also been plagued by cost overruns and delays.Transportation officials say the project is now slated to take at least a year longer than first anticipated and cost about $100 million more than the originally budgeted $1 billion.The companies handling the work won kudos when they were able to reopen the freeway ahead of schedule during the so-called Carmageddon events in 2011 and 2012. But that masked a larger problem for the main contractor, Kiewit, and the subcontractors.Construction and utility workers on the 405 Freeway widening project had to identify and move more than a dozen utility lines under Sepulveda Boulevard. Engineers also had to redesign a portion of the 405 project to accommodate a 12-foot-by-12-foot storm water culvert. The work contributed to delays of at least several months.They say one of the best things about California is you can snowboard, surf, hike a mountain and walk in a desert all in one day.But on the other end of the spectrum, you can also sit idling in your car for an hour trying to accomplish all those things.In what will come as a surprise to virtually no Southern California commuter, Los Angeles has once again earned the dubious distinction of having the worst traffic in the United States, according to an annual congestion scorecard.The report, from data company Inrix, reaffirms what many Angelenos already believe: That L.A. has the worst traffic in the country, that its freeways are among the most crowded, and that the worst time of the week to drive home is Friday afternoon.The average Los Angeles driver spent 59 hours sitting in traffic in 2012, or about 2 1/2 days, the data showed.In Honolulu, the second-worst city and a previous traffic jam winner, drivers wasted about nine hours less.Two other California cities also ranked in the bad-congestion top 10: San Francisco was third, and San Jose was seventh.On Friday afternoons, the Inrix study revealed, it takes the average Los Angeles commuter more than an hour to get home.Los Angeles also is home to 35 of the 162 most-congested sections of highway in the country.And four freeways are in the country's 10 most congested: The southbound 405, the eastbound 10, the northbound 405 and the southbound 5 Freeway.Analysts have long said the state of the economy is linked to how much traffic is on the road. When there are more jobs, it's said, more people drive.Traffic got worse in 2012, Inrix said, because Los Angeles added about 90,000 jobs.Inrix is a data company that tracks and analyzes traffic data, and provides a popular smartphone application that allows drivers to see where and why routes are clogged.One bright spot in the report: A 13-mile segment of the northbound 405 between the 105 Freeway and Getty Center Drive dropped from the most-congested freeway in the country to the eighth most congested. The freeway now has carpool lanes.To top it all off, traffic isn't likely to improve, the study says. In the first part of 2013, congestion increased 6% over the previous year. Nationally, traffic also increased after a two-year decline.Traffic zips in toll lanes, but slows in free lanesWhen Los Angeles County's inaugural toll lanes opened on the 110 Freeway late last year, Scott Sternad decided he could do without."Nearly $1,000 a year?" said the 24-year-old engineering student, who commutes from Hermosa Beach to USC three times a week. "That's a lot of dinners and drinks."But remaining in the free lanes has cost Sternad time. His commute now takes 15 minutes longer than it did before the carpool lanes were reconfigured, he says.That's not what was supposed to happen. But the 110 remains something of a laboratory, and officials are hoping the toll lanes ultimately will relieve congestion on the entire freeway. The results from the experiment are expected to strongly influence decisions on possible expansion of toll lanes countywide.Preliminary data backs up Sternad's experience: Average travel speeds have increased in the lanes formerly reserved for carpoolers, but traffic has slowed on the rest of the freeway.The 405, which carries about 300,000 vehicles a day, is a vital north-south artery known for epic jam-ups under the best of circumstances.In a bid to ease that notorious congestion, Metro and the California Department of Transportation four years ago began preliminary work on the final 10-mile leg of a carpool lane through the Sepulveda Pass. In addition to completing the northbound HOV link between Orange County and the San Fernando Valley, the project called for building new on- and off-ramps, demolishing and rebuilding three bridges and adding miles of retaining and sound walls.At the time, officials forecast completion by spring 2013 — right about now. The timeline was later nudged to December 2013.